52 Days to Go - My very first Disney trip

I honestly don't really remember much about my very first Walt Disney World trip. As my mom tells the story, she basically decided one night she wanted to go, they packed up the Chevy Nova hatchback and she told my dad they would drive until my brother and I had had enough and then they would stop.

We went from Maryland to Jacksonville before we stopped.

I remember staying at the Dutch Inn, a resort which had a pool shaped like a windmill. I believe this was the same place where I chose to climb outside the balcony rails and HANG there with my arms hooked in the balcony rails behind me. This, as you can imagine, scared my mom when she saw me, at about age 5, standing outside the balcony on a ledge a few inches wide and hanging there. Rather than scare me, she went back inside, called my name, and I climbed back onto the balcony and came inside.

I can remember my mom teaching me how to count and say a few phrases in French as we were riding the bus. It's strange how I can remember that for some reason.

I don't remember much about Disney itself. I'm sure I enjoyed it though. I'm not sure we have too many pictures. Not like the hundreds I take now on just about every trip. It's crazy but I can't stop taking photos. I loved to look back through the albums and revisit our trips though.

57 Days to Go - My First Disney trip as an adult review

I had really hoped to be able to enter something here daily, but this week has been crazy and I haven't met my goal. I promise to try harder.

I wanted to talk a little more about the very first trip I took to Walt Disney World as an adult, only because it also happened to be my husband's first trip EVER to Walt Disney World.

We happened to plan our trip for February of 1997 which fell during one of Disney's birthday celebrations. The castle was decorated like a huge birthday cake. I'll have to post a picture of that sometime soon.

We decided to stay at the All Star Music resort for our trip. Our room was spacious enough for the two of us, with I think a king sized bed. We ended up in a handicap room, so the bathroom was like walking into on big shower stall, but it was fine with us.

I wish I could remember the details of our trip in particular, but I'll try to touch on some of the highlights.

We were able to attend two of Disney's dinner shows during this trip. We chose the Polynesian Luau and the Hoop-De-Doo Musical Revue.

The Luau was really cool and I can remember all of the food there being wonderful. The show was very entertaining for adults, especially one of the guys who was twirling fire.

The Hoop-De-Doo show was even better. We were seated at a table near the front and center. Frank was chosen by one of the cast members to participate in the show, which made it even more entertaining, especially for me. It was so cute to watch him on stage being part of the whole show. The food was wonderful again there. I have to say, that we have never been back to attend either one of these shows since that time, but I think we'll make it a point to go in a few years when the kids are a little older and may enjoy it more.

One of our meal choices was to eat at the Prime Time Diner at MGM Studios. That was an interesting experience, especially since I am definitely a picky eater. I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into by choosing this place. I can remember not quite being able to finish my meal and the water picked up a spoon and started doing the airplane with it to feed me. I wasn't sure he was going to let me order dessert after I didn't eat my meal, but he did and I got the s'mores which were fantastic.

We also decided to even brave some of the water parks during February, which wasn't exactly the best idea at the time. I know it wasn't terribly hot that week. We started out at Blizzard Beach but found the water there lived up to the name of the park...it was COLD like a blizzard. We would later decided to brave Typhoon Lagoon and we absolutely LOVED this waterpark. The wave pool there was fantastic and I think we could have spent all day there enjoying that. We even bought a disposable waterproof camera so we could take all kinds of photos. Frank even went off to do the snorkel with the fish that they had there and although it wasn't quite as exciting as scuba diving he still enjoyed it.

There were other opportunites during our short trip to become part of the Disney experience. We attended a show at MGM Studios where they showed the art of studio television. They incorprated a scene from Cheers and asked for volunteers. Frank was chosen to go up on stage and I got to watch as he basically sat at the Cheers bar on the screen and became part of the show.

We went on the Jungle Cruise one day and I was chosen to drive the boat. The driver gave me his hat to wear and I became a part of the ride. It was fun.

I know I came away from my first trip to Walt Disney World as an adult with a renewed sense of the need to return more often. I hadn't been to Walt Disney World since about 1985 and it was a whole new experience for me, especially now that MGM Studios was there, a park which I had never been able to visit before. Plus it was only my second visit to EPCOT and I found I really enjoyed that park as well, despite it's massive size. There's no way I would miss going there and especially seeing Illuminations, which I love every singe time I see it.

Frank came away from the trip with a real sense of just how different the World was from the Land of Disney. We couldn't wait to return and we've managed to go back there at least every two years ever since that first trip.

SIXTY DAYS AND COUNTING

Well my plan for posting here daily went by the wayside over the weekend but I'm back!

The best news about today in particular was that I arrived home to find a piece of mail for me from the Disney Vacation Club. Now I've been waitlisted for any available studio room in Disney during Thanksgiving week. My brother and his girlfriend are arriving the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I wanted to be able to use my Vacation Club points to reserve a room for them as well, since our 3 bedroom villa for that week was already booked. I had even arranged our original reservation into a split stay at two different room types in two different resorts just to have the points available to borrow for this purpose. Anyway, today the letter arrived confirming a reservation for a studio room for my brother to use. I couldn't wait to call him tonight to share the good news. It's nice to be able to basically pay for the rooms for everyone in our family that will be joining us during Thanksgiving.

So, we arrive the Thursday before Thanksgiving, probably sometime that evening after a long drive from home. It will be our family of five plus my mother-in-law and father-in-law. We will check into our 2 bedroom room at Disney's Old Key West for that weekend and the first 4 nights of our stay, checking out on Monday morning.

Monday afternoon my parents will join us in Disney. At that point, we will all be checking into a 3 bedroom vacation villa at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort for the remainder of our vacation, or four more nights. My in-laws will take one bedroom, my parents will take another bedroom, Frank and I will take the 3rd bedroom and the kids will use the pull-out sofa. It should work out just fine for all of us, considering most of our time will be spent in the parks anyway. My brother arrives on Tuesday and they will check into their studio room at Saratoga Springs for 3 nights.

I have already made plans for a few meals for all of us together, especially on Thanksgiving day. It seems a bit strange to not be eating at home on Thanksgiving considering Frank and I have been hosting Thanksgiving dinner together ever since we were married for our whole family. At least we will all be together for Thanksgiving. We'll just be paying somebody else to cook and the menu will be much bigger considering we're eating in a steakhouse. They will still have traditional Thanksgiving fare there, but I wonder what the chances are that I can get that coveted turkey drumstick as I always do for Thanksgiving? Probably not.

I guess that's just the sacrifice I'll have to make to be able to have Thanksgiving dinner away from home. The important thing is that most of our family will be there with us this year. I'm really looking forward to that.

63 Days to Disney

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is Sept. 15th and on November 15th we'll be on our way to Walt Disney World. This will be our very first time driving and I'm not sure everyone is looking forward to the trip. Sure, the final destination will be great, but getting there will be a long road. From our home, we're estimating about 16 hours and right now the plan is to leave as early in the morning as possible.

So far, our departing time has changed many times and right now I think we may be looking at about the 4:30am to 5:30am hour. This is mosly to make sure we get through the better part of the state of Virginia before the ugly rush hour traffic builds there.

Will this drive be tough on the kids? I'm sure, but in this age of electronics there are so many things to keep them busy and I am known as a mom to be as overprepared as possible. I'm sure not only will we have movies and the gameboy and other video games with us, but crayons and markers and books and snacks and perhaps I'll even buy a few new surprise items to bring out for them just when the ride gets rough for them. I'm hoping having all of that stuff will make things easier on everyone, inlcuding the adults who will have to listen to what I'm sure will be some squabbling along the way about something.

All of our previous trips with the kids have been flights. However, as a child my parents did the driving thing with myself and my brother more than once. I'll be sharing some stories about my Disney visits as a child, what I can remember of them, in future posts so stay tuned!

Disney Question of the Week: Where should I stay at Walt Disney World?

It's tough for me to answer this one really, as it all depends on the travel party and what you like to do there. Typically our travel party consists of myself, my husband and our 3 kids PLUS usually my husband's parents as well. We usually arrange to meet other family members down there at some point also, like my parents. However, my parents are not as into seeing all the parks as we are and they are big golfers, so they may spend some time doing some golfing while at Disney.

I can tell you one thing I NEVER recommend is staying offsite. I don't care about your budget and if you think it's a great way to save money, I just believe to get the whole Disney experience you need to be at a Disney hotel, or at the VERY least one of the hotels right in the Downtown Disney area. Otherwise, you are dealing with the commute TO the parks as well as the commute WITHIN the parks. You have to pay for parking each time you visit a park and you don't get the advantage of the Extra Magic Hours. There are certain days of the week that Disney parks are open 1 to 3 hours early or stay open 1 to 3 hours later in the evening and you can't take advantage of that unless you are staying in a Disney resort. Perhaps I'll change my thoughts on this in later years but for now that's just my advice.


I'll never forget the first time I took my husband to Walt Disney World. This was before we were married and I had a friend who had a wedding in Florida in February. This was the perfect chance for me to make a return to Walt Disney World as an adult. Frank and I had previously had a trip to Disneyland in California, but he had never visited WDW. As a child he had grown up in California so he had all kinds of DisneyLAND experience but he couldn't quite comprehend a visit to Walt Disney World. I was looking forward to showing it to him.

Once we were there, one of the things he couldn't get over was the sheer SIZE of the parks. This was not Disneyland with one little park. This was a group of parks scattered around the area and all of them huge. Two years later we would return, this time bringing his parents along with us and also introducing them to WDW for the very first time. Their reaction was the same regarding the size. They now return with us on just about every trip, especially with the kids, and I think sometimes they look forward to it just as much, if not more, than we do.

Despite the size of the Walt Disney World area, all Disney properties offer continuous service to and from their parks in some form or another. Even the Value resorts offer bus service to all Disney parks as well as Downtown Disney and the water parks. Going up another level to a moderate resort gains you a slightly larger room some additional ameneties and sometimes other transportation options such as boats. Stay at a deluxe or home away from home resort, you get more options available at your resort and more transportation options too, such as monorail service.

Some people will stay at off-site hotels because the hotels offer shuttle service to the parks, but most of the time those shuttles only run on certain schedules at certain times of the day, and those buses don't drop you off at the parks or pick you up at the parks in areas that are as convenient as the Disney buses in most cases. Do you really want to spend more time waiting for a bus? I would say probably not.

The Disney value properties such as Pop Century and the All-Star Movies, Music or Sports hotels are great for families wanting to stay within a budget. You can get some great deals on these rooms especially during Non-Peak times of the year. All of these properties offer free bus service to and from each of the Disney parks that runs on a continual basis. I stayed at the All-Star Music resort during a trip in February of 1997 and even though it was just my husband and myself we still enjoyed it. We liked the convenience of the food court to get drinks and food quickly at our hotel, and the bus service worked out great for us too.

Moderate hotels such as Port Orleans Riverside offer a little more than value hotels. You still get several pools on property and the food court, but you also get some other kind of food options, like a sit-down restaurant on the property. The Port Orleans properties also offer boat service to the Downtown Disney area and you can rent bikes and boats on property to ride around in the water around that area. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside (formerly Dixie Landings) in 1999 when it was myself and my husband, as well as my father-in-law and mother-in-law and my sister-in-law and her husband. We each had our own room and they were a bit bigger than the value rooms but still nothing too fancy for us. There was no need when we tended to spend most of our time wandering the parks anyway. We loved the grounds of the resort, despite the hike from our rooms to the food court. Heck, we were at Walt Disney World, where you walked all over the place anyway, what was another walk?

Deluxe hotels like the Contemporary or Polynesian are really something to see. Many people shun the Contemporary for the fact that it's NOT really so Contemporary any longer, but you simply can't beat the convenience of being able to walk directly to the Magic Kingdom from that resort. It's perfect if you have small kids who really want to spend most of their time in the Magic Kingdom anyway. Plus, if you are bringing your own stroller to the parks, you don't have to drop it off at the end of the day at the park and haul a sleeping kid on a tram or a monorail or a bus. You just walk right back to your room and drop that sleeping kid right off in the bed at the hotel room. It's great. We've stayed at the Contemporary twice and loved it.

We have also stayed at the Polynesian where we had a great lagoon view room. We could see the castle across the water. I can remember getting up with my 3-year-old son during the early morning hours when it was still dark outside and we sat together and watched the castle change colors and it was great.

The highest and most expensive level is the Home Away From Home resorts. Here you get bigger rooms and suite options, kitchen or kitchenettes, and additional options such of boat transportation or the ability to walk to some of the parks. For example, if you stay at the Boardwalk or Beach Club you can walk to EPCOT where you enter the park through a different entrance than the rest of the general public. There are currently no HAFH resorts on the monorail line, but there is increasing speculation that the Contemporary is in the process of building a group of Disney Vacation Club resorts on their property. We'll just have to wait and see.

So, if you are a Disney Vacation Club member, you stay at the Home Away From Home properties and it's a great way to take advantage of additional Disney perks. We became Disney Vacation Club members last year finally and our next trip this November will be taking advantage of our membership to stay at both the Old Key West and the Saratoga Springs resort. We are looking forward to it. Previously we have stayed at the Boardwalk resort and we just LOVED it. With small kids, it was great to come back to the room, put them down for a nap, then sneak into another room to watch tv. Plus we had a full kitchen so we could prepare meals and snacks whenever we wanted to do so to save money. Although I have to admit, half the fun of going to Walt Disney World is being able to enjoy the many various food options that are there. Yes the food is expensive, but it's very rare that we are every disappointed in a Disney restaurant.

So where should you stay at Walt Disney World? My answer to that is ANYWHERE as long as it's a Disney resort. I don't really think you can be disappointed in any of them and the service at each one is usually top notch. If you still can't decided, send me your information about your party size, the ages of people in your group, and I'll give you some suggestions though.

64 Days until Disney Trip 2007

As of today we have 64 days until we leave for our next Walt Disney World Vacation. I've started this blog to keep track of my countdown. My goal right now is to post an entry each day about Walt Disney World, whether that be a little excerpt of trips of the past, a photo or a video.

With this being a day after September 11th, I thought it fitting to write about where I was during that day in 2001, and the simple fact is I was in the Happiest Place on Earth...Walt Disney World.

This was Nicolas' first trip to Walt Disney World and it was our second day there. He was almost 18 months old at the time. We started off the morning having breakfast with Mickey and the gang at Chef Mickey's. We headed to the park afterwards but Nicolas was a bit cranky having not slept well his first night there. We walked back to our hotel, the Contemporary, to see if he'd nap.

That wasn't happening so a little while later we took the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom to meet up with Frank's parents there. I vaguely recall some conversation on the monorail from strangers about airplanes and New York but wasn't paying much attention.

Once inside the park, we rented a stroller and I walked into the baby changing station to get Nicolas a new diaper. When I came out, Frank informed me they were closing the park.

"They don't CLOSE the Magic Kingdom" I told him. Yet, they sure were and as we got bits and pieces of info about what was happening in the rest of the country, I was in a bit of a panic. I remember hearing that there were several planes that were unaccounted for and I remember thinking how perfect Disney would be as a target. It was scary to think about. We walked back to our hotel room and Frank's parents met us there not too long afterwards.

There, in our hotel room at the Happiest Place on Earth, we watched the events of the morning and day unfold. It was terrible. Hearing about the attack at the Pentagon was even more frightening, as my mom was working in Washington, DC, at the time. I called my dad who said she was trying to get home, but as you can guess that was no easy task. I didn't hear until much later that evening that she had arrived home safely but she had to catch a ride with somebody else out of the city and my dad had to go pick her up.

I can remember walking through the lobby of the Contemporary later as we got food and hearing people at the front desk crying, talking about how they needed to get home.

Of course, knowing that we were scheduled to fly out on Friday of that week, we also wondered how easy that would be especially as the days following the attacks had airports in such a disarray.

Despite all of this, we did have a lovely trip. It was even extended another day for free, but not for the reasons we expected. That Thursday evening Hurricane Gabriella came into town and that had our flight for Friday cancelled. Disney put us up in the room for one more night for free. We used the free park pass we got on September 11th, the day we had to leave the park, to go back to the Magic Kingdom one last time that trip. It was a perfect day, weather was perfect and crowds were light. We couldn't have asked for more.